I found this idea in a magazine years ago. Assemble 24 Christmas (or winter) children's books, wrap them up and every evening from December 1st to Christmas Eve, the kids get to unwrap one book. It helps them with the "IamsoexcitedandifIdon'topenapresentrightnowIamgoingtoexplode" phenomenon. Of course over the years I've collected more than 24 books, so now we start reading books on the night after Thanksgiving. Here are some of our favorites. Most of my books I have gotten at Seagull Book or at Read more [...]

Friday morning I woke up with a sore throat and thought "Why did I agree to come into work today?" After hitting the snooze alarm I remembered something about bills, my unit needing me and it only being a couple hours, then dragged my tired booty out of bed. I work in Pediatrics and I generally don't get sick, because I am exposed to a wide variety of nasty bugs in many forms on a regular basis and after a year or so that builds up a super immune system. That is I don't get sick as long as I get Read more [...]

This year for V-day I made beef jerky for my beloved. He will know this truly a sign of my love because I HATE touching raw meat, which is an unavoidable downside of making your own beef jerky. (Although it's very tasty, and super easy and inexpensive to do if you have a dehydrator and a jerky gun.) Including the cute container to put it in, it cost me less than $4. For my kids I found some cute V-day socks at Old Navy for 70 cents each and a couple books for a few dollars each. In the Read more [...]

I came across this great list today and just had to share it. It was found at http://www.lds.org/topic/christmas/christmas-ideas.html Enjoy.Replace some holiday decorations in your home with reminders of Christ.Politely decline requests that will take you away from family.Play more Christmas music.Donate gently used items to a thrift store.Go Christmas caroling.Avoid “mad rush” shopping times.Say thank you as often as possible.Schedule a night to help another person or family.Call someone you Read more [...]

Here are some of the things I enjoy most about the holiday season, many of which you can do with your children on a low budget.1. Baking cookies! 2. Decorating. This can get expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Some of my favorite memories as a child were making our own decorations. We made paper snowflakes and festive paper chains that we hung from the ceiling around the borders of the room. And to this day my mom's favorite Christmas tree ornaments are the ceramic mice that we painted when I was Read more [...]